The present invention relates to cutting tables for large workpieces such as banners.
In the sign and banner industry, large workpieces are generally laid out on a worktable for cutting. In most cases, the worktable has a relatively soft or easily scratched top surface, such as wood, plastic, or glass. These surfaces quickly become marred by the use of knives on the tables and must be replaced frequently.
In current practice, a person must position the material from which a workpiece is to be cut on the worktable, climb up on the table, measure the workpiece, and then cut the material with either scissors or a knife and straight edge. This very time consuming procedure is awkward and imprecise. Cutting large workpieces with a knife on a flat worktable quickly results in marring the table top surface and, in the case of glass table tops, in rapid dulling of the knife blade.
A number of devices have been disclosed in the past to address one or more of these problems. U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,305 by Brothers discloses a device for cutting sheet material into predetermined shapes which employs grooves in the cutting surface for guiding a cutting instrument. These grooves, however, are arranged to facilitate the cutting of predetermined shapes and lack the flexibility necessary to cut a large number of rectangular shapes and sizes of banners and other workpieces. This and other devices also lack a means for quickly positioning and measuring workpieces and further lack a convenient means of expanding the cutting surface to accommodate very large workpieces.